Category: quantitative data

An emerging iron cage? Understanding the risks of increased use of big data applications in social policy

Big data technologies are increasingly being utilised in the field of social policy. Although big data methods and strategies are often preferred as a form of evidence-based policy development, big data techniques do not necessarily guarantee scientific objectivity. Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia discuss concerns about the rapid growth in big data methods being used to inform and shape social […]

Without a critical approach to big data it risks becoming an increasingly sophisticated paradigm for coercion

We are in the midst of a data revolution, one reliant on the capture, analysis, and visual representation of enlarged quantitative data, in increasingly digital formats. Hamish Robertson and Joanne Travaglia argue that big data quantification is now not only a mechanism for extracting information but has become an idea with social and political power in its own right. The […]